


comprehension

by LydiaOfNarnia



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Era, M/M, lewis nixon is a hot mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 14:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaOfNarnia/pseuds/LydiaOfNarnia
Summary: "I wish this wouldn't happen."This scene has played itself out over and over again in their several-years-long acquaintance, but tonight the script has changed. Something about this situation is new, and it isn’t Lewis drinking himself into a stupor.Dick never fails to take him by surprise.(written for the Tumblr prompt:"Promise me you'll take better care of yourself.")





	comprehension

“I wish this wouldn’t happen.”

Dick’s words hit him like a bullet wound to the chest – quiet, concerned, heavy with a sincerity he’s hesitant to show. The idea of Dick being callous makes him want to laugh; Dick Winters couldn’t be insincere if his life was on the line. He’s so honest, so principled, so _everything_ that Lewis never learned or needed to be.

(There’s so much about Dick that Lewis doesn’t know how to describe.)

Lewis blinks up at him in hazy-eyed surprise. This scene has played itself out over and over again in their several-years-long acquaintance, but tonight the script has changed. Something about this situation is new, and it isn’t Lewis drinking himself into a stupor. Even Dick having to pick him off of the floor isn’t new – it’s happened more times than Lewis’s pride will let him admit.

Dick rarely says anything about his drinking. If he does, it’s some offhanded remark about his footlocker, or a scarcity of Vat 69 that Lewis is working his way around. It’s one of those things they don’t bring up. Lewis drinks, Dick doesn’t. It’s been that way since the first day of officer’s training; Dick bright eyed and naive, and Lewis’s breath already smelling of whiskey.

He’s known it was coming. It is as much of an inevitability as the war ending, or Lewis eventually destroying himself. Dick could not keep ignoring his drinking forever. One of those inevitabilites that seem lifetimes away, but are really close enough to reach out and grab you by the throat.

The inevitability has come, and Lewis has the awful premonition that it is a prelude to all the rest.

He gives a thick swallow and draws himself up with all the dignity he can muster. It isn’t much. The world swims around him, the same nauseating slur that coaxed him into lying down and not getting up in the first place. He manages to hols himself steady for almost five seconds before slumping back into Dick’s arms again. Dick doesn’t falter; he supports him, not staggering beneath Lewis’s dead weight.

“It’s far from the first time,” Lewis mutters, ignoring the disgust souring in his gut. “Don’t hold out hope it’ll be the last.”

“Lew,” Dick says, and pulls away. Lewis is forced to meet his eyes, clear and worried as they stare down at him. Dick has eyes like glass – they shine so brightly that sometimes Lewis thinks he could stare right through them. If the man’s thoughts were as easy to read, he’s have a much easier time brushing him off. But it’s never been that easy – at least, not with Dick.

He’s pathetic. He realizes it, and it burns him inside out. That doesn’t mean he’s going to change. At this point, he doubts he can.

“I know,” is all he says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. “I know.”

“I don’t think you do,” Dick says, and there is a pulse to his words, a current of hidden meaning just beneath the surface that Lewis is too hazy to figure out. Then again, maybe being sober wouldn’t help. “I wish you could understand.”

He wants to. He wants to know Dick’s meaning so badly; he wants to know every inch of him. He’s an intelligence officer. Understanding is his job, making sense of the information given to him. With Dick, however, understanding is the hardest part. It seems like the harder Lewis tries to make sense of the man, the more clear things seem, and the more impossible.

Dick cares about him. Lewis knows this. Dick pities him. Lewis knows this too.

(Does he ever disgust Dick as much as he disgusts himself? Can he and Dick really understand each other, despite the worlds of difference between them? Does Dick like him more than he should? Lewis doesn’t know, but he _yearns_ to.)

He opens his mouth, ready to protest that he does understand, or at least he wants to – but his tongue freezes up. He can’t form the words, no matter how they burn his throat. Defeated, he just slumps, and helps Dick as best he can as he is carried to the bed.

Every other time this has happened, Dick has left once Lewis is safe in bed. Tonight, the script has changed so much that Lewis figures mixing up the ending won’t make that big of a difference. Instead of letting Dick go after he settles him down on the mattress, Lewis clings to his arm with as much strength as his clumsy fingers will allow.

“Stay. Don’t leave tonight. Stay here.”

“Lew,” Dick sighs, but doesn’t protest further as he climbs into bed next to him. They both know what this would look like, if anyone were to catch them, but Lewis is sure he can come up with an excuse. Dick is too valuable to the army, and he’s too… well… he’s too much of something to get caught so easily.

Besides, nothing is happening. Nothing at all. Dick wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling Lewis in to rest his head against his chest, but it doesn’t really mean a thing.

Lewis is in that distant state of drunken half-consciousness, just beginning to float away, when Dick murmurs into the crown of his head, “Promise me you’ll take better care of yourself.”

His stubborn tongue refuses to reply. Lewis sighs, nestling further into Dick’s chest, and feels the other man’s arms tighten around him.

Tomorrow will be a new day, a new hangover, and a new inevitability to face. Tonight, the embrace of Dick’s arms is one thing that remains a constant.


End file.
